Pika Monitoring at Crater Lake National Park, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and Lava Beds National Monument: 2010 Annual Monitoring Report
Jeffress MR, Garrett LK, Rodhouse TJ. 2010. Pika Monitoring at Crater Lake National Park, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and Lava Beds National Monument: 2010 Annual Monitoring Report. Natural Resource Report. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The mission of the National Park Service (NPS) is “to conserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment of this and future generations” (NPS 1999). To uphold this goal, the Director of the NPS approved the Natural Resource Challenge to encourage national parks to focus on the preservation of the nation’s natural heritage through science, natural resource inventories, and expanded resource monitoring (NPS 1999). Through the Challenge, 270 parks in the national park system were organized into 32 inventory and monitoring (I&M) networks. Four park units in the Pacific West Region, Crater Lake National Park (CRLA), Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve (CRMO), Lassen Volcanic National Park (LAVO), and Lava Beds National Monument (LABE) have formed a partnership with the Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN) to develop a long-term monitoring protocol for the American pika (Ochotona princeps) following common methods that support comparative analyses. The pika is a charismatic species in all of these parks and evidence of recent localized extirpations and range contractions in some areas, particularly in the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada mountains, have led to concerns about the impacts of climate change on this heat-intolerant animal. This protocol annual report details the status estimates obtained during the first year of monitoring (2010). A total of 318 randomly-selected sites were surveyed at the four parks from mid-June through mid-September 2010. Occupancy of sites was determined by surveying for pikas, pika calls, fresh food caches, and fresh fecal pellets within plots with a 12-m radius. Monitoring efforts for 2010 were coordinated with the “Pikas in Peril” research project. The proportions of sites considered occupied were (by park, lowest to highest): 0.145 for LAVO, 0.214 for CRMO, 0.238 for LABE, and 0.647 for CRLA. A customized relational database application, implemented in Microsoft Access, is being used to store and manipulate the data associated with this project. In 2011, established sites will be resurveyed as well as new sites to reach the goal of 100 monitoring sites per park.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Jeffress, Mackenzie; Garrett, Lisa; Rodhouse, Thomas
- Date of Issue
- 2010-12
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- CRLA , CRMO , IMDP , LABE , LAVO , NRSS , UCBN
- Keywords
- Monitoring, pika, pika monitoring, Pika Protocol, PWR-toolkit, PWR-toolkit-Natural-Resources, Wildlife
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Mammals